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Topic Starter Topic: Re: Learning Blender 2.7.3

True Nightmare
True Nightmare
Joined: 14 Nov 2000
Posts: 4216
PostPosted: 01-09-2015 07:17 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


When you do relatively complex shapes like you show above with your beveled cube, you're relying on the scripts ability to properly convert a plane into a volume, it does that by extruding surfaces backwards - it's this extrusion process that causes corrupt brush volumes (try it on that tiny corned piece to see what happens... you'll likely find it's depth isn't "1"). For something like the object you have above then, the best thing to do is bevel a cube rather than a series of planes (hollow box) - ironically, the way that Radiant use volumes is an advantage for plane cutting or 2 & 3pt clipping, that's quite awkward at present in Blender because you can't quite defined the clip points as can be done in Radiant, meaning, although a beveled cube seems like a simple object to make in Blender, it's not quite so straightforward because the constructional metaphors are different (surfaces vs. volumes).

And you're quite correct BTW, although you can just make your map in Blender, it still requires some thought because you're ostensibly supposed to think in volumes not surfaces or planes, that can make certain types of object otherwise tricky to create when compared to how easy it might be done in Radiant (because of the aforementioned differences).



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Boink!
Boink!
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
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PostPosted: 01-09-2015 09:23 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Thanks... so I might be able to tinker something... clipping-related in Blender. Hmm...

And to be clear, I never planned to build a whole map in Blender, never... that would be nuts with a problematic exporter and a very much more stable Radiant for all the trivial brushwork readily at hand. I seen Blender as a tool to create "finer" assets, that are very difficult to create in Radiant. Hipshot mentioned that he uses modelling tools to create lamp (fixtures) and the like. I am think basically anything that requires a lot of vertex editing in Radiant, is much easier to get done in Blender.

I'll try the more complicated shapes next and see how Blender's bevelling and the .map exporter handle them.

As you quite rightly point out, the issue and limitation is the extruding of the planes creating problematic geometry by the exporter. I experimented with the thickness in the exporter script and found the messed up geometry again, with the missing "angled edges".

Maybe the exporter with my settings can make it back into Blender distribution again... since it now mostly works again.

It certainly would help to use Radian's 3-point-clipping to create the "primitives" for Blender that can then be used e.g. for bevelling. I do the latter for Microbrush 3, create the raw brush in Radiant, import it into the other editor, to use the bevelling there. Though the 3-point-clipping in Microbrush 3 I pretty much have figured out, almost better than in Radiant. Oh well :).




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Boink!
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Joined: 19 Apr 2003
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PostPosted: 01-09-2015 09:41 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Kat wrote:
Also to avoid or at least mitigate the thickness issue you amended to script for, when you're working don't using planes, use volumes, they exporter works much more comfortable with those (otherwise you end up with corrupt brushes (being to thin or warped incorrectly etc.).


No idea how to use/create solid "volumes". The Create, Cube objects were IMO supposed to be that. Could you walk me though this? Thanks.

As you suspected, an extruded triangle, half a cube, creates artefacts using the .map exporter from Blender. Trying to turn the object faces in Blender into something valid with thickness in Radiant, i.e. extruding messes up the bevels. My cube example was simple enough for me to trick the exporter into working. So unless there is a way to create solid volumes in Blender... alas this is a dead end for the .map exporter. I tried the Solidify modifier, but that only seems to make things worse.
:arrow: see *.map based levels with Blender 2.49 - advanced where all these issues are explicitly mentioned, already... I was behind in reading.

Clipping... deleted vertices of cube, then selected the 3 or 4 vertices, hit f (to add a face, thus closed the cut open cube, creating an extruded triangle or ramp. So one can "tinker" to get the shapes... well I barely can :).

Bit of fun:
    Attachment:
    Blender Bevel 2015-01-09 19'18'15.png
    Blender Bevel 2015-01-09 19'18'15.png [ 12.9 KB | Viewed 444 times ]
Using vertex editing instead of clipping in Blender I came up with this diamond-shaped ramp, that fits into a cube volume... never even thought of that in Radiant before. The bevelling is starting to get slightly wild.




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True Nightmare
True Nightmare
Joined: 14 Nov 2000
Posts: 4216
PostPosted: 01-09-2015 11:58 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


You're over complicating what you're trying to do. When you look at the default scene in Blender you see a single cube. To Blender that is an empty shell, an object with 6 surfaces. To *us* however, that same object represents a solid volume. This means that when you're modelling you're doing so using closed mesh objects NOT panels or open meshes - it's these latter two that cause the most problems.

That ramp likely won't export or will result in some weird shape (not what you intended), so yes, just using bevel has significant limitations when needing to export brush volumes, and you might then need to correct those or just build those structures as ASE models or rebuild as clipped brushes in Radiant.

It is possible to build a level completely in Blender but you're generally going to get better results building to it's strengths; sock mentioned in another topic about how he used a lot of modelled assets in POM - modular thinking in other words.



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